


tear at the seams

by defcontwo



Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: Anxiety Disorder, M/M, Pre-Canon, Substance Abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-19
Updated: 2015-02-19
Packaged: 2018-03-13 19:37:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 926
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3393809
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/defcontwo/pseuds/defcontwo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This is what Jack lives for: </p><p>The second he touches down on the ice, his mind clears. For sixty minutes, he is nothing but a blank slate, a white board that fills itself up with plays and tactics, a steady hand on the stick and a heart that beats for nothing else.</p>
            </blockquote>





	tear at the seams

**Author's Note:**

  * For [reserve](https://archiveofourown.org/users/reserve/gifts).



> A very happy birthday to the incandescently wonderful reserve! :D And thank you to Ngozi for creating this wonderful webcomic that has totally taken over my life.

This is what Jack lives for: 

The second he touches down on the ice, his mind clears. For sixty minutes, he is nothing but a blank slate, a white board that fills itself up with plays and tactics, a steady hand on the stick and a heart that beats for nothing else. 

And if it’s a good day, if everything goes right, if he does _everything_ right -- steady hand making all the right touches, sparking off that smooth transition as the puck goes from ice to stick to the back of the net -- he gets to win. 

There’s nothing else in the world like that post-win adrenaline high. He’s tried explaining it, once, to a classmate who’d asked and the best he could come up with is: when you win, it feels like nothing in your life could ever really go wrong again. 

It sounds childish, it sounds foolish, and it’s not enough, he can’t make the words form in his throat to describe how his whole body just lifts right up from that dead steady calm until his whole body thrums with it, this restless, boundless energy that makes him feel like he can go, go, go, like whatever else he’s done wrong in his life, Jack Zimmermann is finally, finally worth it all.

.

He didn’t think it could get any better, that post-win adrenaline high, until they started adding sex on top of it.

It’s funny, how the two seemed to go hand-in-hand, like there was no other natural conclusion to his relationship with Parse than this. On the ice, it’s like they’re one and the same, an extension of the other and Jack doesn’t have to second guess it, because no matter what he does out there, Parse is always right there beside him, there to back his play. 

The first time they did this, there was no finesse to it -- they’d slotted up against each other, Parse with one hand wrapped around them both, slick and desperate, and there was a raw edge to it, like they couldn’t get enough too soon or too fast. Their uniforms were shoved down and out of the way, with Parse pressing Jack into the lockers, the hard metal of it digging into his shoulder but he could barely feel it, he didn’t care. Parse still had one of his gloves on for fuck’s sake, and his tongue was caught between his teeth the way it always did when he was focusing, and Jack couldn’t stop staring at it, couldn’t stop thinking about biting into Parse’s bottom lip to just to find out what kind of noises he would make. Because Parse -- Parse just doesn’t know when to shut up, he can’t stop making noises, can’t stop murmuring “good, so good, you were so _fucking_ great out there, Zimms, Jesus, let me hear you,” and Jack, Jack just arches into it, takes it all in and tries to give as good as he gets. 

They take a little more time with it, now. Practice makes perfect, isn’t that what the coaches always say, and they’ve had plenty of chances to practice this. Jack, with his jersey rucked up and his legs wrapped around Parse’s waist, mouthing kisses into the crown of Parse’s head as they chase each other higher and higher and higher. 

“Did you lock the door?” Jack murmurs, and it’s the sort of thing that he should’ve thought of earlier, if he was capable of thinking of anything at all except getting Parse up against the nearest hard surface and kissing him until they were both dizzy with it. 

“Maybe?” Parse says, but it comes out breathless and uncertain and mostly like he doesn’t really give a shit which probably, he doesn’t, because that’s the thing with Parse, he treats everything like the next best challenge and it makes him a little more reckless than either of them have any right to be, not with this. Parse laughs, low and close, lifting a sweaty hand up the curve of Jack’s back, steadying him. “Shit, man, what does it matter?” 

And the thing is, it doesn’t -- it doesn’t matter because when Parse jumps off the ledge, Jack is always gonna be right there with him, just like always. He’ll remember this moment, later, and he’ll cringe at his own carelessness, but in the space between the end of the win and the comedown of the high, anything is possible and nothing is second guessed and Jack, Jack doesn’t really give a shit, he just closes his eyes and lets himself fall. 

He’ll remember this moment, later, when the panic starts to rush back in and his hands start to shake and he’ll chase a couple of pills down with a lukewarm can of Molson’s to try and do anything to bring himself back to this, but it’s not going to work -- it never does. 

That won’t stop him from trying, though.

.

They’re giddy on the comedown, and Parse can’t stop laughing, laughing when Jack gets his arm stuck in his shirt, laughing when they trip over their own skates on their way out the door, and if Jack could take that laugh and bottle it up and save it for later, he would.

Parse throws open the door with a flourish. “Whoops. Looks like the door wasn’t locked.” 

Jack crowds him against the door jamb and kisses him, for all that anyone could walk by and see. In the here and now, it's like they're both unstoppable. “Guess you were right, Parse. It didn’t matter.”


End file.
